Judge Bios

J. Michael Ryan was sworn in as an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on Friday, January 16, 2004. The ceremony took place on the Atrium Level of the H. Carl Moultrie I Courthouse, 500 Indiana Avenue, NW, Washington, DC. The Honorable Rufus G. King, III, Chief Judge, presided. Judge Truman A. Morrison, III, administered the oath of office.

J. Michael Ryan was sworn in as an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on Friday, January 16, 2004. The ceremony took place on the Atrium Level of the H. Carl Moultrie I Courthouse, 500 Indiana Avenue, NW, Washington, DC. The Honorable Rufus G. King, III, Chief Judge, presided. Judge Truman A. Morrison, III, administered the oath of office.

Prior to his appointment to the bench, Mr. Ryan, a lifelong resident of the D.C. Metropolitan area, had been an attorney at the Public Defender Service since 1985, most recently as Special Counsel to the Director of PDS. As Special Counsel, he coordinated the agency’s use of expert witnesses as well as agency jail diversion efforts and oversaw PDS’s Mental Health and Offender Rehabilitation Divisions. He participated in the PDS Forensic Practice Group and was involved in the preparation and presentation of challenges to the admissibility of both nuclear and mitochondrial DNA evidence in the District of Columbia Courts. Mr. Ryan has lectured extensively on the use and admission of expert witness testimony, especially as it relates to issues in psychology and psychiatry.

From 1985 to early 2002, he served as a staff attorney at the Mental Health Division of PDS, located at Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital. In that capacity, he represented indigent clients subject to both civil commitment proceedings and criminal release hearings. Through numerous jury and bench trials, probable cause and Mental Health Commission hearings, and multi-expert complex litigation, he developed an expertise in the presentation and confrontation of expert opinion testimony. Until leaving PDS, Mr. Ryan chaired the DC Jail Diversion Task Force, a working group comprised of representatives from various criminal justice and mental health agencies and community service organizations, which addresses problems relating to people with mental illnesses in the criminal justice system. Collaborative efforts of this group resulted in the creation and operation of OPTIONS, a successful pretrial diversion program in Superior Court, as well as a force-wide training of the Metropolitan Police Department in the appropriate handling of people with mental illness.

Mr. Ryan has served on the Superior Court’s Family Division Mental Health and Mental Retardation Branch Working Group and as an Advisory Board Member of the Criminal Justice/ Mental Health Consensus Project of the Police Executive Research Forum. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Georgetown University School of Medicine and was a contributing writer to the Mental & Physical Disability Law Reporter of the American Bar Association. He is admitted to the bars of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and the Supreme Court of the United States.

From 1984 to 1985, Mr. Ryan was a partner with J. Patrick Anthony in Ryan & Anthony, practicing criminal and civil mental health defense. Following graduation from law school, Mr. Ryan served as law clerk to the Honorable Richard B. Latham, Sixth Judicial Circuit Court, Montgomery County, Maryland, and interim law clerk to the Honorable Bruce S. Mencher, Superior Court for the District of Columbia. Mr. Ryan received his Juris Doctor degree in 1982 from the National Law Center, George Washington University and his Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors in Philosophy from the College of William and Mary in 1979.

J. Michael Ryan is married to Catherine Dobbins Ryan. They are the proud parents of Virginia and Porter Ryan.